


Don't Breathe

by Qpenguin98



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Other, Self-Hatred, Space Dad Shiro imparts some fatherly wisdom, Training, Trans Character, i think that counts, trans keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>Keith nods and Shiro stands up.</p><p>“Then what were you thinking?”</p><p>Keith honestly did not expect a lecture out of this, and he looks up at Shiro with wide eyes.</p><p>“What?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PSIDontKnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSIDontKnow/gifts).



> Hello yes this is for PSIDontKnow who requested it in the comments i hope you like it

Keith knows he pushes himself too far in training sometimes. Overexerts himself to the point of pulled muscles and an over bruised body.

He’s good about knowing his limits, though.

Both of those things heal easily, and if he wants to speed up the process, there’s healing pods in the castle. No one questions a thing.

He trains with the binder on because he knows it’s what he’ll be wearing during an actual fight. It’s logic, he tells himself, as his chest constricts and his breaths get shallower.

He stops, momentarily forgetting he’s in the middle of a training sequence, to take a breath, and is immediately punched in the face by the training dummy.

“End training sequence,” he grits out, and it stops.

He sits, back straight, arms up, then down, and breathes.

Better.

He coughs a few times to loosen his lungs, and the next breath is even clearer.

He runs a gloved hand through his hair and is instantly disgusted by how damp it comes back. He stands, stretches the bruises out for a moment, and goes to take a shower.

\---

“Wow! That is a fantastic looking bruise on your face, my main mullet man. Who’d you piss off to get that?”

At least Lance is amused by the giant dark spot on his face.

“The training dummy.”

“Isn’t the first rule of fighting to block your face or something?” Pidge doesn’t even look up from her computer.

“And since when do you let yourself get punched in the face?” adds Hunk.

“Stopped to breathe, got punched in the face.”

“Even Keith, training at all hours of the day, has to stop and breathe. We learned something new today kids!”

“What level were you on again, Lance?”

“Unimportant. What is important, is that Emo McScenersons got punched in the face.”

“Is ‘Emo McScenersons’ really the best you can do? Sad, Lance. Sad.”

He leaves the room to a drawn out “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” from Pidge.

\---

Keith is so, unbelievably, incredibly angry at himself. He stopped to breathe, one second in a battle, one second from blocking a shot, and Pidge got hurt.

She got shot in the shoulder, and everyone knows that she’ll be fine, but it’s his fault. And he knows it.

If he wasn’t a dumbass and hadn’t taken the time, breathed two seconds later, it would be fine.

Pidge made a joke on the way back that if the shot had been any lower, she’d maybe be matching Shiro, and it was strained and forced the laugh that he gave.

Fuck his lungs and his body and his whole self for that.

Once he’s sure Pidge is going to be fine, Keith leaves the sick bay, muttering something about grabbing things from his lion.

He doesn’t, in fact, go to his lion at all, but to the training room.

Because clearly.

He’s unprepared.

He starts a level above where he was yesterday, stance already sloppy with anger.

It’s not good, the fight, but it feels better then standing around his teammates and the one that got hurt because of him.

He’s bruised more than usual and he’s pretty sure he’s bleeding from somewhere, and he can’t breathe.

Shallow, so shallow breaths are all that he can suck in and his lungs are burning, but he keeps telling himself it’s fine.

“Don’t breathe,” he wheezes out.

With no air in his lungs and no air in his head he’s slowed down and he’s getting dizzy.

The training dummy knocks him off his feet and it’s all he can do to get an arm up before it’s knocked back down again.

He doesn’t even have enough air to end the sequence, and getting kicked in the stomach adds to the pain in his chest.

And then it stops.

He doesn’t move, worried he’ll make it worse if he does.

“Keith?”

Shiro’s voice floats in his head, and _then_ he moves, hands flat on the floor, pushing himself into a somewhat upright position. He can hear himself gasping, and this is honestly not what he wanted anyone to walk in on.

Then he’s suddenly sitting up and everything just spun around his whole head.

“Try breathing lower, can you do that for me?”

Shiro sounds so calm and it’s so weird and he tries his best but end up sputtering and coughing.

Hands rubbing his back, holding him upright, and he tries again.

Easier, less coughing, but not great.

And then he gets in a rush of air and everything goes white before going back to normal.

He can breathe again and the pressure is gone and he sucks in so much air he gets dizzy from that.

It’s a never ending cycle.

That ends pretty quickly and then he realizes why he can breathe.

His binder’s unzipped and Shiro’s still holding him upright with this look of fatherly disapproval.

“Fuck,” he mumbles out, and Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“Are you okay?”

Keith nods and Shiro stands up.

“Then what were you thinking?”

Keith honestly did not expect a lecture out of this, and he looks up at Shiro with wide eyes.

“What?”

“You’re training in a binder, the thing that literally compresses all chest activity, and you think that’s smart?”

“How’d you-”

“Pidge told me.”

He’s in his own personal hell for letting Pidge get shot.

“I didn’t-”

“Do you understand how dangerous that is?”

“Yes but-”

“Then why did you think it’d be a smart idea to go above your current training level, _after_ just coming back from a battle with the Galra, and fight the dummy with that on? Do you have no regard for yourself? Do you do that every time you train? Get beat to hell by the training dummy because you’re so out of breath you can’t talk. That is the best-”

“I train in what I wear in battle,” he shoots back. It’s a last ditch effort, he hasn’t been able to get a word in edgewise.

“You can breathe on a battle field, it won-”

“Yes it will! Pidge got shot because I stopped to breathe. If I had waited, if my body was actually prepared for a fight, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Shiro is silent.

“I could’ve blocked the shot, and she wouldn’t be in that healing pod, she’d be coding some weird glitch that when we flip the light switch a disco ball comes down, or making something with Hunk, or talking to you. Anything.”

“You think that was your fault.”

It’s not a question.

“It _was_.”

“Did you think this was going to help?”

“It did until I stopped breathing.”

Even then I deserved it, he thinks to himself.

“No one blames you for that, certainly not Pidge.”

“I could have-”

“Pidge is fine.”

“And what if she wasn’t? What if she died because I was too slow? What if any of you died? I can’t let that happen.”

“You’re not responsible for the injuries of your teammates. You’re not shooting at them. You’re not the one hurting them. You’re trying to protect them, and sometimes you can’t, but you need to protect yourself.”

“I…”

“Let’s go back to the others, alright?”

“I’ll catch up with you, I just need a second.”

Shiro nods and leaves the training room.

Keith takes the time to zip back up his binder, because he’s breathing fine now and there is no reason not to wear it.

He looks at the blood from scrapes on him hands and sighs.

He follows Shiro out.

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boyo that was a quick adventure  
> im sorry i didnt make it shippy i couldnt figure out how to fit it in there


End file.
